Tomorrow's hope, today's youth

Reem Khaza'ila is a 24 years old student from Mafraq Governorate in northern Jordan, where poverty rate and high unemployment deprive young people of the opportunity to fully participate in the life of the community and have productive lives. Reem was selected for the internship programme (training and job placement) during the second round of the Project’s internship programme. After her bachelor’s degree in psychology, which she completed in 2010, Reem began the arduous journey of looking for a job that could satisfy her needs and aspirations. Like many young Jordanians whose attempts were unsuccessful, she realized that a university certificate itself was inadequate to assist her in finding suitable employment. When there is lack of practical training and skills to enable young people to access the labour market, she said, “BA is not enough; to get a job one needs practical training”.

Reem continued her search for nearly three years before she was given the opportunity to join the Employment and Life Skills Training followed by the job placement provided by the UNDP Youth Employment Generation Project Phase I. Reem underwent intensive training program and, like many other trainees before her, has been able to improve and refine her communication and social skills to match the demands of the labour market. Based on the needs of private companies who partner with UNDP, the training has allowed Reem to start a 6-month practical internship.

Highlights

Through the Youth Employment Project Phase I, UNDP has provided assistance to the three governorates of Mafraq, Ma’an and Madaba, enabling young people to enhance and integrate professional and life skills to improve their prospects of entering the local labour market.

Reem is now working as a programme coordinator in the Jordanian Hashemite Fund, using the training she received from the Project. “The training helped me expand the horizons of my knowledge and gain a variety of different skills”, she explains. This placement has also helped her in meeting a network of people through her professional contacts and improving her knowledge of the labour market. This in turn helped Reem in her search for a dream job and in improving her knowledge of the labour market and other companies who are potential future employers.

One of the core objectives of the project was the retention of the interns in the workforce after the period of internship ends. Reem’s success story highlights the importance of this objective. After the initial training and the following 6-month period of practical internship with the Jordanian Hashemite Fund, Reem subsequently applied for a vacancy within the organization. She excelled in all exams and interviews and was selected as the successful candidate for the position among 60 well-qualified candidates. In the end, Reem was able to prove all doubters wrong when they tried to convince her that joining the training was a waste of time. “I proved to my critics that training would lead me to my dream job“, she happily concluded.